Generally, bleach activators rapidly lose their effectiveness at solution temperatures of less than 40° C. While new organic catalysts such as 3,4-dihydro-2-[2-(sulfooxy)decyl]isoquinolimium, inner salt have been developed, they can inactivate certain enzymes and tend to be hydrophobic—thus their aqueous solubility is limited. As most laundry and cleaning compositions are formulated in, or intended to be used with water, formulating cleaning products with such catalysts can be problematic.
Formulability of some current bleach activators, which provide cleaning of bleachable soils, into granular and liquid laundry detergents, hard surface cleaners, dish cleaning compositions, continues to challenge detergent formulators. There also exists a need for materials that are relatively easy to manufacture from sustainable and readily available raw materials, which may be broadly tuned to address specific performance requirements. A multifunctional material that provides cleaning via bleaching action, provides soil suspension capacity and gives increased surfactant availability by preventing formation of larger ordered aggregates of anionic surfactant with free hardness during use is also desired. Specific performance requirements include providing cleaning of hydrophobic stains (grease, oil) to hydrophilic stains (clay) associated with outdoor soils as well as bleachable stains such as grass, wine, tea, coffee, and dingy soil generated as body soils or generated by air pollution. There exists then a need to find bleaching agents that are tunable to provide both hydrophilic and or hydrophobic soil bleaching and to do so under concentrations relevant to laundry and other cleaning products used by consumers.
It has now been discovered that incorporation of an organic bleach catalysts into a polymeric structure solves many of these issues providing effective and efficient multifunctional polymeric catalysts. This has been achieved by using a polymeric structure of a sugar based polyols and other polyols as starting materials for attachment of bleach activator structures discussed herein. Bleach activators described herein are containing as a key structural feature a ring structure.
Polyol materials based on sugars such as sucrose or maltose are known as a sustainable and readily available raw material. Ethoxylates of maltitol are known, e.g., CAS 503446-80-8. Other known ethoxylated polyols include: ethoxylated manitol (CAS 53047-01-2), ethoxylated inostol (CAS 503446-79-5), ethoxylated sorbitol (CAS 53694-15-8). Ethoxylates and propoxylates of ethylene glycol and propylene glycol are also known. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,371,119 and WO 01/98388 A1.